Italy Consumer Confidence November 2016

Italy: Consumer confidence stays virtually unchanged in November

The Italian National Institute of Statistics’ (Istat) consumer confidence index decreased marginally from October’s 108.0 points to 107.9 points in November, marking the worst result in 16 months.

November’s reading reflected a moderate deterioration in households’ assessments of both the current economic situation and their general economic expectations for the future, with the latter recording the worst result in over two and a half years. On the other hand, households’ assessments of their willingness to buy as well as of their personal current and future economic situation improved slightly.

Panelists expect private consumption to expand 1.2% in 2016, which is unchanged from last month’s forecast. For 2017, panelists see private consumption growing 0.8%, which is also unchanged from last month’s projection.

Industrial output grew 0.1% in July on a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, following the 1.1% expansion registered in June and beating analysts’ expectations, which forecast a 0.3% contraction.

The IHS Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 56.3 in August from 55.1 in July, the highest level in six and a half years and above market expectations of a slight increase to 55.3 points.

The National Institute of Statistics’ (Istat) consumer confidence index stormed to 110.8 points in August, up from July’s 106.9 points and comfortably beating market expectations of 106.9 points.
August’s reading reflected a broad-based improvement in all of the index’s sub-categories.